I had a basset hound growing up, and they almost always just look kinda bummed. Not a whole lot of expression. We knew when she was happy and when she was sad through other context clues, but her face didn't give us shit.

Now I've got a little border collie mix (not sure what with, she'll always just look like a border collie puppy), and holy shit, she is the most expressive dog I've ever met in my life. I'm sure some of what I see in her face is projection, but she also clearly expresses herself in a lot of ways. She's sassy as shit, I love her.

I've got a miniature Schnauzer who looks permenantly grumpy, the only way you can tell his expression is by his tail and eyes. Pretty sure he'd be smiling most of the time if it wasn't for the old man beard, wouldn't have him any other way though.

My parents have a collie and I get what you mean, he is so expressive. They describe him as being in his teenage years at the moment, because he doesn't like to take a telling to much and you can see it

My Loke is a cocker spaniel too, he's not as squishy but he's a tricolor with spots of brown above his eyes — and ridiculously spoiled. So he's already demanding enough about putting "cookies" in his treat ball, but those angry eyebrows really take it to the next level. He knows he's set for life to always get tiny milk bones, no matter what.

30,000 years of co-evolution. Dogs were the first animal that humans domesticated and it was more like a partnership rather than master-servant.

Dogs are the only other animal on the planet that can genuinely understand human facial expressions and pointing rather than just trained conditioning. Dogs can actually look at a human's eyes and reason out what the human is looking at. A useful skill when hunting side by side with humans.

This dog looks very similar to my Golden, it's a bit lighter in the coat, and between eyebrow positions and how she closes get mouth she has so many little expressions. My favorite is her disgruntled expression that she does when you aren't throwing her ball for her.